Oak Ridge to host Rotary International peace forum

The Rotary International District 6780 will hold a Peace Forum on Saturday, March 9, 2013, in Oak Ridge. This event will mark the first time in many years that a Rotary International president has visited The Secret City.

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Oakridger - Oak Ridge, TN

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Posted Dec. 26, 2012 at 6:13 PM
Updated Dec 26, 2012 at 6:16 PM

Posted Dec. 26, 2012 at 6:13 PM
Updated Dec 26, 2012 at 6:16 PM

The Rotary International District 6780 will hold a Peace Forum on Saturday, March 9, 2013, in Oak Ridge. This event will mark the first time in many years that a Rotary International president has visited The Secret City.

Rotary International President Sakuji Tanaka of Japan will attend and speak at the Peace Forum; see the International Friendship Bell, which was made in Japan; visit the Secret City Commemorative Walk, which was built by the Rotary Club of Oak Ridge, in Bissell Park; and tour the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

One of Rotary’s missions is to promote world peace and understanding. The Peace Forum is being organized by a committee assembled by Jack Bailey, past president of the Rotary Club of Oak Ridge and current district governor of District 6780, which consists of 65 Rotary clubs throughout East Tennessee.

The Peace Forum will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Pollard Technology Conference Center on the Oak Ridge Associated Universities campus. The conference hotel is the DoubleTree by Hilton on South Illinois Avenue.

Fred Heitman, chairman of the Peace Forum organizing committee, said the much-anticipated event has several purposes.

“We hope to motivate participants through education to develop innovative ways to achieve peace through global service projects,” he said. “We are looking for ideas on how to achieve peace through science and technology and through human understanding.

“Our vision is to work toward creating a world that chooses communication, collaboration and cooperation over conflict.”

Rotary International is also sponsoring international peace forums in Berlin, Hiroshima and Honolulu. Tanaka will also be present at those events.

The motto of the RI president for his one-year term is “Peace through Service.” Incredibly, Oak Ridge is the site of the only scheduled peace forum in the continental United States that the RI president will address, Bailey said.

At the Peace Forum in Oak Ridge, Tanaka will deliver the keynote speech, and two panels will address “Peace through Science and Technology” and “Peace through Human Understanding.”

The registration fee is $50, which includes a box lunch and drink. Non-Rotarians, as well as Rotarians, are welcome to attend.

The organizers of the Peace Forum are seeking sponsors to fund the event. Sponsorship levels — including name and number of tickets — are:

• $100 or less (Peace Patron);

• $500 (Friend of Peace, two tickets);

• $1,000 (Peace Builder, four tickets);

• $2,500 (Peace Partner, six tickets); and

• $5,000 (Peace Ambassador, eight tickets).

Rotary International is an international organization of 1.2 million members of 34,000 nonprofit service clubs in more than 200 nations and territories.

District 6780 includes three clubs in Oak Ridge.

For more information, contact Fred Heitman at jfredd@aol.com. Or to register for the conference, visit the website http://www.rotaryor.org/peaceforum.html.